Genrikh Yagoda

Genrikh Yagoda (7 November 1891-15 March 1938) was the Chief of the NKVD from 10 July 1934 to 26 September 1936, succeeding Vyacheslav Menzhinsky and preceding Nikolai Yezhov.

Biography
Genrikh Yagoda was born on 7 November 1891 in Rybinsk, Russian Empire to a family of Russian Jews, and he was an apprentice engraver under the father of Yakov Sverdlov, one of the original leaders of the Bolsheviks. Yagoda was chosen by Joseph Stalin to succeed the late Vyacheslav Menzhinsky as Chief of the NKVD on 10 July 1934, and he oversaw the first Moscow show trial that saw Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev be executed at the start of Stalin's Great Purge. He was held partially responsible for the deaths of 7,000,000 Ukrainians in the Holodomor famine-genocide, but in 1936 he was demoted and in 1937 was arrested. On 15 March 1938, he was summarily executed by firing squad along with his wife.